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So now our imperfect and yet, on the whole, relatively lucky country is 150 years old. Was that a sufficiently measured observation? I wouldn’t want to seem boastful, certainly not in these days of post-colonial comeuppance. But we’ve made it this far nonetheless — still intact, still a vast land mass with a not-too-large population.

Are we having fun, though, during this sesquicentennial year? Out here on the Pacific Rim, we’re about as removed from Ottawa’s celebratory ground zero as one can be without leaving the country. Yet I’ve been lucky to find a couple of projects that speak to my Canadian identity. And you can do likewise.

One of these diversions emerged from my work developing some online sociology courses at a college. That sounds very underwhelming. But here’s the thing: since these courses concern Canadian society, and because I love photography, I’m embellishing them with photos selected from the rich trove on the Library and Archives Canada website.

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If you’ve felt detached from Canada’s sesquicentennial (the word itself seems to defy pronunciation), I recommend spending half an hour on this site. You may be hooked much longer, though. Try keyword-searching some common terms — “family” or “work”, for example. The results can be moving, disturbing, even beautiful. The connection with earlier Canadians is powerful.

The images range from pre-Confederation daguerreotypes, sketches and lockets, right up to the 2000s. Nineteenth-century urban Montreal. Beautiful Inuit families in the 1950s. Formal Victorian portraits of a new nation’s bluebloods, and gritty images of Depression-era underdogs. Africville in Nova Scotia, and, yes, residential schools all over the map.

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Historical events roar to life — Canadian nurses comforting French civilians during the First World War. Crowds at Expo 67. One of my favourite images shows children in the 1940s attending art classes held by Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Toronto. Swathed in paint and beads, hair wild and shot from a low angle, they radiate an almost feral vitality — anticipating the juveniles in Lord of the Flies.

Another treat: the early-1940s sketchpad diaries of artist and Canadian Women’s Army Corps enlistee Molly Lamb. They capture a heady moment and a swirl of movement — young, caught up in an adventure and great cause, and meeting Canadians coast-to-coast before embarking for Europe.

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My other project is a playlist. It begins with the rough folk music of voyageurs, fiddles and mining camps and capers up to the frenetic superstardom of Bieber and Drake. It encompasses the postwar wit of Wade Hemsworth; the ’60s urgency of Ian, Sylvia, Gord, Neil and Joni — and on through the Guess Who, Stan Rogers and The Band, plus Cockburn, Furtado, Aglukark, Feist, Sexsmith and many others.

A playlist is a necessarily personal thing, yet of course you want representative and worthy selections, to do justice to Canada’s musical legacy. Odd questions of identity and provenance confront you. Is Buffy Sainte-Marie a Canadian artist? She certainly is on her wonderful Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan.

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Songs with Canadian themes take priority, although they often don’t exist — most songwriters prefer universal subjects. But be sure to track down Daniel Lanois’ beautiful Red and Sam Roberts’ more ironic The Canadian Dream for your playlist — you’ll find them only on the Canadian releases of their respective albums.

Un Canadien Errant — an important ballad of exile written after the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-38 — has been interpreted diversely, not least by Alan Mills, Leonard Cohen and jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett. For the Rheostatics’ ecstatic Seven, find a copy of their album Music Inspired by the Group of 7.

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If music is the terrain in this exploration, then research is my canoe, public libraries are the rivers, and interlibrary loan provides the occasional portage. The challenge lies in the embarrassment of riches. While I try to obey a self-imposed rule — one song per artist — my playlist now numbers 80 tracks and I can’t seem to winnow it down any further. But I swear I’ll finish it — and share it with Canadian friends — before this sesquicentennial summer is half over.

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